From Ed Steer:

Starting around 2:00 p.m. in Hong Kong on Wednesday afternoon [1:00 a.m. Eastern Time], and following the sun as the London and New York bullion markets opened and closed, gold managed to add about $11 by 11:00 a.m. in Hong Kong...about 20 hours later on Thursday morning. Silver, following much the same pattern as gold, added 47 cents during the same period of time.

Estimated gold volume totaled 67,299 lots...which included 10,239 switches...as traders rolled over their May contracts into June and other months, rather than stand for delivery on April 30th. This same process is occurring in silver as well. Options expiry on the Comex [in both gold and silver] is tomorrow.

I was not impressed by the fact that the gold shares didn't hold their gains in the last hour of trading as the Dow sold off. I don't know if there's anything to be read into that or not. The usual N.Y. commentator noted that..."Action like this usually heralds a serious bear raid." We'll see...as anything can happen around options expiry and first day notice. However, despite the gold shares’ poor performance, the silver shares did pretty well for themselves.

If you remember, Tuesday's gold rally into the Comex open was subsequently hammered flat after that. Well, gold open interest actually rose 2,850 contracts to 339,226. Was it fresh shorting? Silver was also beaten down a bit on Tuesday, but not as much. Silver o.i. fell 422 contracts to 96,277. The cut-off for Friday's COT was at the end of trading on Tuesday. Hopefully these numbers will be in it.

In other gold news, I see in the Comex Delivery Report for Wednesday that 56 gold contracts were delivered...and none for silver. As of the Comex open this morning, that leaves about 725 contracts left to be delivered in April. Over at the Comex-approved warehouses, silver inventories rose by 678,747 ounces...most of it into Scotia Mocatta. The U.S. Mint has updated its 1-ounce eagle production in both gold and silver...and they are as follows...one ounce gold eagles up another 44,500 last week...which brings the monthly total to 118,000. Silver eagle production rose another 575,000 to bring the April total to 1,868,000. We should get at least one more update before month’s end. There were no changes in either the GLD or SLV ETF's alleged holdings.

The usual N.Y. commentator had the following comments yesterday..."On Tuesday, the European Central Bank's weekly consolidated financial statement reported that a sale of gold by one captive CB produced a fall of €6.0 million (0.27 tonnes) in “gold and gold receivables”. Last week a 0.14 tonne sale was reported. The ECB itself has yet to run the 35.5 tonne sale of its own gold reported at the end of last quarter through the weekly statement (making a mockery of them). It did announce that the proceeds of gold sales have been ‘invested’ in dollars, a curiously indiscreet remark. Of course, reported sales are well below the amount notionally implied weekly pace of the second Washington Agreement on Gold. Also of note is the fact that the early rally in gold yesterday had the effect of taking The Gartman Letter out of its short position."

Ted Butler sent an interesting piece my way yesterday. It's the "BHP Billiton Production Report for the Nine Months Ended 31 March 2009" Like Ted, I was only interested in their silver production numbers...and this [in a nutshell] is what it said... year/year silver production...down 11% [3.8 million oz.]...but compared to the prior quarter [Dec Q'08], silver production was down a whopping 24%. You can check out their production data on all metals. Except for natural gas and diamonds, their production is down across the board in just about everything. It's the chart on Page 7 of this pdf file...and the link is here.

I haven't had an 'in other news' paragraph for many a moon...but with so much happening, I just have to do one. In a marketwatch.com story..."Freddie Mac acting CFO found dead in apparent suicide". I love the use of the word 'apparent'. I wonder what dirty little [or big] secrets he took to his grave with him? In a story posted in The Wall Street Journal is the headline "GM Defaults." It was only a matter of time, but now it's official. The company CFO says the firm will not make its June 1st $1 billion debt payment. Let's see what the bondholders do now. In a story in the New York Post yesterday, it was reported that The New York Times is facing "a cash crunch that could put it on the path toward insolvency." [All the media, not just the print media, has seen their advertising revenues vanish. It's just as bad (if not worse) here in Canada. - Ed] And lastly, in a Bloomberg story I see that "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. effort to reach out to Iran will be coupled with the threat of ‘crippling’ sanctions should the regime in Tehran rebuff diplomacy to curb its nuclear program." [I bet the boys in Tehran are just shaking in their boots...LOL! - Ed]

I have three stories today. The first was posted at upi.com and arrived in my in-box via Jim Sinclair over at jsmineset.com. Once again Hillary Clinton is beaking off about another country that represents a 'moral hazard' to the world. At first I thought she was going to discuss the United States...but no, it's one of its own 'allies' or ex-'allies'...Pakistan. "Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world," Clinton said. "And I want to take this occasion...state unequivocally...that not only do the Pakistani government officials, but the Pakistani people and the Pakistani diaspora ... need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents..." It appears that, slowly but surely, the Taliban is taking over. The link to the story is here.

The second story was posted in London at news.bbc.co.uk...and is entitled “ 'Deeper' Recession Ahead Says IMF...” At the heart of the crisis is the continuing overhang of losses in the financial sector, which the IMF now estimates at $4 trillion, four times higher than it projected just one year ago. And it warns that the current outlook is "exceptionally uncertain, with risks still weighting on the downside." [Ya figure! I'm sure glad these guys are here to tell us this. - Ed] I thank Brad Robertson for sending me the story...and the link is here.

My last article is posted over at garynorth.com. The headline itself is sure to raise the paranoia level of the average U.S. gold bug. It's entitled "Why Gold Owners Are Targets of the Government"...and is a pretty good summary of the gold-price suppressing tactics of the central banks that GATA long has been publicizing. The link is here.

The money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. - William Jennings Bryan

As the IMF report mentions above...the current outlook is "exceptionally uncertain, with risks still weighting on the downside." If they missed their guess by 400% in just one year...the mind boggles at the thought of how much they might be wide of that mark by this time next year...as this "greater depression" continues to gain strength. And, no doubt, a lot of governments [and their respective central banks] will burn their national currencies to the ground in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. I can't think of a better reason to own gold and silver than that.

See you tomorrow.

Casey Research correspondent-at-large Ed Steer is a keen observer of the financial scene and a board member of GATA.org.